The present invention relates generally to the field of marketing, and more particularly to providing a customer, utilizing a mobile device, an incentive to influence purchases.
Developments in cellular and computing technology have resulted in proliferation of smart mobile electronic devices, such as smartphones, tablet computers, and wearable devices with advanced capabilities, such as digital eyeglasses (e.g., smart glasses) and smart watches. Mobile devices contribute to the growing network of social interactions and the connectedness of users. Businesses look to these mobile devices as a conduit to users to improve sales.
Proximity marketing is the localized wireless distribution of advertising content associated with a particular place. Information can be received by individuals in that location who wish to receive them and have the necessary equipment to do so. Location based services (LBS) have similar concepts that can make use of a user's position to provide various services, such as actual traffic information and listings of restaurants close by. Typically, these services are based on positioning systems such as global positioning system (GPS) or information from the mobile communication network such as global system for mobile communications (GSM®).
Alternatively, an indoor positioning system (IPS) can locate mobile devices, objects and/or people inside a building using radio waves, magnetic fields, acoustic signals, or other sensory information collected by mobile devices. IPS solutions can rely on different technologies, such as distance measurement to nearby anchor nodes with known positions (e.g., wireless local area network access points), magnetic positioning, or dead reckoning. IPS solutions can actively locate mobile devices and tags, or provide an ambient location or an environmental context for devices that are sensed (i.e., detected).